


All Ye Who Enter Here

by Anonymous



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, BAMF TFW 2.0, Cas Helps Save Himself, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt Castiel (Supernatural), Hurt/Comfort, Jack Kline to the Rescue, Non-Consensual Bondage, Tied-Up Castiel, Winchesters to the Rescue, smothering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-26
Updated: 2019-01-26
Packaged: 2019-10-16 15:41:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17552447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Jack finds them a case involving what looks like a haunted house attraction actually being haunted.Dean has his doubts, and they’re all still finding their feet after Michael, and this job is probably one of the worst best ideas they’ve ever had, depending on who you ask.Until the actually haunted house attacks Castiel, and then they can probably all agree that it’s definitely one of the worst.





	All Ye Who Enter Here

Dean didn’t say much on the drive out, and Sam let him stew. Even with his brother wanting to indulge Jack (and he guessed a lot of that was as much guilt as affection), there were limits and this _hunt_ he figured was buffeting up against them.

“Maybe it’s a ghost,” Jack piped up, from in back. He’d been playing the YouTube video of screaming kids fleeing ‘the scariest house in Vermont’, on a loop, and kept reading out the comments people were leaving. “I mean it’s supposed to be a haunted house.”

Cas seemed as aware of the tension in the car as Sam did, and held out his hand for the IPad. He glanced at the video, and did a smart job of reducing the volume of those way too genuine screams without it seeming obvious. 

“It’s a sort of ride,” the angel explained to Jack. “People go in, expecting to be scared, and the owners of the house have probably put people in costumes, or will use special effects, to frighten them. Like a Ghost Train.”

“Oh.” Jack nodded, and was silent for a moment, before asking, “What’s a ghost train?”

“A waste of twenty bucks,” Dean said, and he reached back for the IPad. Cas handed it over, and Dean risked a glance at the screen before tossing it to Sam. “We’re gonna get there and this is gonna be some PR BS.”

Sam handed the IPad back to Cas, who returned it to Jack, and neither he or the angel missed how crestfallen Jack looked. Thanks to Dean, he knew what BS meant.

Cas looked pissed, and Sam guessed he and Dean would be having words at the next stop, and he’d probably have to get in the middle.

Because he got it, they all did; Michael was loose out there, doing who knew what, and Dean felt to blame. That, and it didn’t help not knowing why Michael had left him in the first place, which meant not knowing if it was possible to keep him out again.

All Dean wanted to do was find a way to deal with Michael, to find him and kill him, and Sam got that. He, Cas, Jack, they wanted the same thing. 

But they also knew that if they let Dean, he would lose himself in this, to the point where desperation would drive him to do something stupid.

They knew it because they’d been here before, and because each of them had had that moment where they’d done the exact same thing.

But the others had pulled them back. Just not always in time.

Cas and Sam had been up late many a night, waiting until they were alone, discussing how to protect Dean from Michael, and from himself, and in a way that was why they were here.

Sam just had this feeling that it wasn’t going to work, and maybe by the end of this little excursion they’d be worse off than before.

++

They couldn’t swing being ‘FBI agents’ with Jack in tow, so in the end they kind of told the truth to the owners of the house.

They were parapsychologists, doing a study of haunted houses, and they’d seen the YouTube video and wanted to take a look.

To which the owners had replied, “Hasn’t everybody,” and given them the keys and let them have at it.

Turned out the last ‘experts’ to turn up had been a group of college students who’d left their ‘gear’ (which turned out to be a cheap ass video camera and a hand held tape recorder) broken on the steps when they fled, screaming about bloody phantoms.

The owners apparently didn’t have any bloody phantoms in the house. Or something rigged in the downstairs kitchen to throw crockery at people.

And they certainly weren’t aware of the hands that suddenly came out of the shadows in the basement to choke out anyone close by.

Dean perked up a little when their EMF detector reacted the minute they stepped inside, but his mood had been better since he and Cas had ‘talked’ a couple of hours before.

Sam had kept Jack occupied, getting some food, and after Dean had got Jack to ride up front and had him talk some more about the house and it’s history.

So they weren’t quite back to normal, but getting there.

“Does that mean we’ve got something?” Jack asked.

Dean nodded. “Yeah. I mean, maybe. A lot of these old houses have some residual energy. Not like a ghost, more like…. Memories.”

Jack seemed a little deflated, but still curious. “Houses have memories?”

Cas patted Jack’s shoulder. “Humans are powerful. They leave their mark on the places they live in so many ways. Did you ever feel like the bunker was… _heavy_ around you?”

Jack nodded, though he seemed a little lost. “I guess.”

“It’s like if somebody passes through a room before you, wearing a really strong scent,” Sam joined in. “Even after, you maybe don’t know who was there, but you know somebody was because it lingers.”

Jack turned in a slow circle, looking around him. “So this, the terrified kids...It’s all memories?”

Dean shrugged. “Most likely hysteria. One kid gets spooked, next thing they all are and seeing Freddy chasing them out of the door.”

“Who’s Freddy?”

Sam grinned as Cas shot Dean a _don’t you dare_ look over Jack’s head, and his brother rolled his eyes.

Yeah, they were definitely getting there.

“Look,” Sam said. “Why don’t we split up? Jack, you stick with Dean, and check this floor. I’ll take the basement, and Cas, you can take upstairs?”

He had a feeling by the time they left the house, Dean would have expanded Jack’s pop culture knowledge a little more, and that would mean him making it up to Cas later.

++

Cas took the upstairs one room at a time, and found nothing but cheap plastic eyeballs sitting on shelves, or a closet door that kept swinging open of its own accord (he examined it and found a spring loaded mechanism between the door and the frame) and a skeleton that dropped down from the ceiling in one of the bathrooms, timed to coincide with the lights going off and then coming back on.

He couldn’t imagine why humans would pay for this, but then even after so long among them a lot about their behaviour was still puzzling.

And infuriating.

He found himself in a bedroom, and it seemed surprisingly free of fake scares; it was home to a large bed, ornately made up, a piano by the window, and a period writing desk and chair near the door.

Cas checked them all carefully, and found nothing of interest, and took a moment to sit on the bed.

Dean wouldn’t let them help him. He was blaming himself for saying yes to Michael, for what Michael had done with him as a vessel, and no matter what Cas said to him, it didn’t seem to help.

Sam had tried too, as they were both the only other people really in a position to understand what Dean was going through.

They too had said the fated word, and allowed themselves to be taken over (though the question of ‘allowed’ in Sam’s case had proven the subject of some debate, with both Cas and Dean arguing that - much the same as with Dean - he’d never intended to lose control).

Cas was the only one who’d said yes, knowing he would be subjugated, but willing to suffer so Dean would survive and Sam would remain free and they’d have a fighting chance against Amara.

But they had all suffered, in the during and the after, yet Dean had resisted their attempts to support him. He was determined to take all the responsibility, the blame, onto himself, and seemed just as determined to find the solution.

He couldn’t do it alone, not without running himself into the ground, but Cas knew Dean was trying to keep them out of this, back from Michael and the threat he posed.

That, though, wasn’t his decision, and Cas just didn’t know what it would take to get Dean to see, and accept it.

He heard something, then, a footstep outside in the hall. Maybe the others had finished their exploration of the first floor and basement, and found this to just be a case of, as Dean said, hysteria.

If that was true, he’d be unbearably smug on the way back, but Cas found that he wouldn’t mind. And he had a feeling that even so, Dean would make sure Jack wasn’t too disappointed that there were no actual ghosts here.

He stood up, ready to rejoin his family, when something snagged around his wrist.

Off balance, Cas was spun around and found the bedsheet tightly coiled above his hand. He tugged, tugged harder, but the sheet was stretched out and taut, still tucked under the mattress on one side, with the other end holding on to him.

Cas unfurled his Grace, sure this was just another prank of the house owners, but puzzled that the sheet wasn’t just tearing through.

He was an angel, and it was holding him in place.

But before he could burn through it, the other covers came to sudden, malevolent life. He could feel the loathing building around him, and one sheet flared out and wrapped itself around his middle.

Cas was yanked off his feet, and dragged onto the bed, and then they were all over him.

His wrists were tugged to each of the corners, his ankles the same, and another sheet coiled itself too tightly around his throat.

The angel fought, but the sheets didn’t tear or give, and Cas felt a heavy, hateful presence working against him.

It wasn’t just the sheets. It felt like the whole house had suddenly come to belligerent life and was trying to kill him.

“Dean,” he yelled. “Sam, help! Jack!”

The pillow closest to his head flipped end over end, and before Cas could cry out again, it had pinned itself down across his face, muffling his cries.

++

It was Jack who found it. 

Sam had finished up in the basement pretty fast - it was basically just an empty space, with nowhere for anyone to hide themselves or anything, lending a little credence to the story of the disembodied hands (the YouTube video had shown an hysterical kid with thick bruising around their throat).

He’d gone back upstairs, finding Jack digging around in an antique fireplace.

He’d gotten a little sooty, but nothing too bad; Sam had a feeling the fireplace wasn’t used, and just kept looking like that for effect.

But digging among the ashes, Jack made an excited noise, and picked something up.

Sam had some holy water in a flask, and he used a little to rinse off what looked to be a coin; old, bronzed, with some roughly hewn lettering.

“It’s a hex coin,” he said.

“Why would that be here?” Jack looked around, alarmed, as if he expected monsters to suddenly descend on the three of them.

Dean tucked the EMF meter away, and pulled a small warded velvet bag from his pocket.

“Can you read the transcription?”

Sam squinted but managed. It didn’t seem like your standard curse coin, which he’d heard of people passing on to enemies or anyone they wanted to even a score with. Those ones were typically specific: to cause illness, public embarrassment, lose of wealth or position.

This one was different, and Sam felt a chill spread through him as he realised it was for summoning.

Not a demon, not a ghost, but something.

He tucked it away in the bag, but if the coin had already done its job, they were shutting the barn door long after the horse had bolted.

“Did you hear that?” Jack said.

Dean and Sam looked at each other, but Sam hadn’t heard anything and it looked like his brother hadn’t either.

They glanced at Jack, and he looked pale. 

“I thought it sounded like Castiel,” he said. “I thought he was screaming.”

++

Dean slammed against the bedroom door with all his weight, but the fucker held. They’d stuck together, checking each of the rooms, and this was the only one that wouldn’t let them in.

Which meant Cas was in there, and probably what malignant presence that coin had brought into the house was in there with him.

He hammered on the door, yelling Cas’s name, but couldn’t make out any reply.

Sam came up beside him, and they both shouldered at the door. Jack tried to help, and between the three of them, it started to crack and give.

Each inch they felt, bones throbbing, but it was worth it when the door crashed inward, spilling them into the room.

Dean looked around with alarm, and then yelled Cas’s name as he saw the angel.

Cas was pinned down to the bed, the sheets coiled around his struggling body like ropes. A pillow was flattened across his face, as if held down by invisible hands, and Cas was bucking up, trying to dislodge it, to get away.

They ran to him, tearing at the material, but it held fast. Dean imagined he could hear laughter, imagined he could see the house’s walls rippling in time.

“Whatever the hell that coin brought,” he said to the others, “I think it’s made a home here.”

“It won’t let go,” Jack wailed. He had his hands in the pillow, pulling desperately against it, but with no obvious success.

His eyes started to glow, and Sam shoved him back before Dean could. They could get Cas out of this without Jack risking himself.

Sam grabbed the pillow and started to pull, even as Dean took out his knife and started slashing his way through the roped bed sheets. It was a battle his brother was winning, maybe because Cas wasn’t fighting to get free now by himself; his family was here, helping, and this thing...whatever it was, it couldn’t handle all four of them.

They’d saved the goddamn world, and it was not splitting them up now.

The pillow came free, and Cas sucked in a lungful of air even as Dean finally cut through the sheets trapping the angel’s right wrist.

Cas grabbed at the bindings on his other arm and tore through them with a furious shout, even as Sam and Jack turned their attention to the restraints around the angel’s ankles.

They seemed weaker now, and Dean wondered if this thing was strengthened by fear. It must have been well fed by those terrified kids, but now it was faced with something different.

They weren’t intimidated, and they weren’t going to buckle, and within another few moments of struggling, Cas was free.

Dean sheathed his knife and hauled the angel off the bed, Cas staggering against him, and then he was shoving Sam and Jack at the door and hauling Cas along.

Whatever it was that had settled in here, it seemed to have had enough of them, and made no attempt to stop them leaving.

They stumbled outside, straight to their car.

Dean sat Cas down in the back, turning him so his feet were on the ground, and he could check him over.

He looked shocky, with red marks around his neck and wrists, but they were already starting to fade.

“You okay?”

Cas nodded. When he spoke, his voice was even rougher than usual; Jack grabbed a bottle of water from the trunk and Dean uncapped it before holding it up to the angel to drink.

“Dean, that being...whatever it is, it’s fused with the house, it’s...feeding on it...on the…”

“Memories,” Jack said. He stared back at the house, sounded both a little wondrous and more than a little scared.

++

Cas was okay.

He was shaken, which Dean wasn’t going to tease him about, and that was okay because it wasn’t every day a possessed house tried to smother you to death.

If Cas hadn’t been an angel, they’d have lost him in there, and Dean couldn’t think too much about that yet.

He and Sam had left Jack to look after his dad, while they went and explained the situation to the owners. They did remember a young couple who they’d seen snooping around in daylight hours, when the attraction was closed, and had chased them off, but that was all they knew.

Odds were they were the ones to leave the coin, and Dean figured they’d never know who they were, or why they’d done it, but the result was the thing.

That house was contaminated, and there was only one way to deal with it now.

Fortunately, the owners had insurance, and so didn’t object too strongly to Dean and Sam soaking the place down with gasoline and then torching it, especially not when Sam tallied up loss of revenue and one or more wrongful death suits if they did decide to reopen it.

By the time the fire department was on the way, the family was long gone, the Impala eating up the miles to home.

They didn't say a lot, still shook, and Dean was okay with that. He kept glancing back at Cas, reassuring himself the angel was still there and was still okay, but he also looked for his brother and their kid.

They were the reason he’d said yes. He couldn’t regret that, even with what had come next. Because saying yes to Michael had saved them.

It might cost more later than any of them could afford to pay, but Dean was used to taking the small victories when he could. Sometimes that was all they could get.

But, with his family alive around him, and nothing more than already healing scrapes and bruises to show for their latest adventure, it didn’t feel like a small victory to Dean.

It felt like he had the world.

And no matter what he had to do, he’d find a way to keep it.


End file.
